A Despicable Quality
by ceoria
Summary: Lysandre succeeds in controlling Ash and Greninja, intent on moulding them into the hierophant of Team Flare's new era. Under the malicious influence of Mega Evolution energy, forced into conflict with the entire world, Ash and Greninja struggle to maintain their sense of self and protect the people closest to them.
1. Chapter 1

My mind had been twisted before.

That time in the ruins of Pokelantis, where I'd been jailed in the void of my unconscious mind, with the only remaining link to reality my one true passion: a window from which I could conduct battle at the whim of a despot and tyrant who'd forsaken an entire civilization in the name of his own pride and lust for power.

That time with Hoopa, where I'd taken in the resentment and evil festering in him since time immemorial, where I hadn't the will to resist for more than a token moment before being subsumed by a putrid malice that hung over me like a shroud, that ate away the color in my eyes until only the red of a rage that'd been steeped for millenias burned within my irides.

My own weakness. My untrained abilities in aura that let the memories of others supersede my own reality and drown out the ringing of my universal wave.

My own hate. The resentment of being the eternal also-ran. The resentment of coming close and falling short. The resentment of being unable to live up to the expectations of others, but more importantly the failure of living up to the expectations of myself.

 _Oathbreaker. Liar._

My own malice. The vicious desire to war for the sake of war, that lust for power that overshadowed my faith in Infernape and turned the fight with Paul into an unseemly grudge match that ignored any noble motivations related to kinder and gentler methods and ideologies. Power for power's sake. Desire enough to bring myself and Greninja to the breaking point, and leave us gasping for air, laid out in the dirt of a forest floor. The shuriken on our back is the symbol of our power, as easily manifested by a desperate plea for the satisfaction of my ego as much as the genuine link between us.

Now, with the Mega Evolution energy Alain had gathered to end the world flowing through me, I realized:  
 _  
_ _The mind of the King of Pokelantis was not a mind at all. The mind of the darkness of Hoopa was not a mind at all. They were simply lingering motivations that poisoned me and brought to the forefront despicable qualities that were always there._

I did not want to fight for Lysandre, but I did want to fight. And standing against the world, there would be many, many strong opponents, and in the face of such competition my partners and I would become much, much stronger.

I was released from my bindings. I reached into the power shared between myself and Greninja, and a platform of compressed water gently lowered me to the landing below.

"This is a chosen human, Alain! A paragon!" said Lysandre. "One with a unique, one-of-a-kind power that surpasses the unrivaled strength of Mega Evolution!"

 _And wasn't that your dream?_ I thought, peering into Alain's heart. _To use Mega Evolution and become its strongest wielder? A trainer standing over all on a stage already standing over all trainers without the benefit of a stone?_

He flinched as though struck. Could he feel the movement of the waves?

 _Does an existence that stands above the peak of your dream invalidate it as it looms overhead?  
_  
No. Greninja and I had lost to Alain on the greatest stage.

 _Lysandre doesn't know what he's talking about. He's just enamored by a novelty. If you wanted an unmatched enforcer, why didn't you turn your machine on Alain instead?_

Click. Greninja was released from the black bindings and fell to my side in a graceful three-point landing. He thrummed with that sickly aggregate power, mega evolution energy taken from many different species. It hung over him in a crimson shroud.

I glanced at my hand. It hung over me as well.

"Director," Alain said, his eyes tight with stress, "let him go. He has nothing to do with this! What does any of this accomplish?" He grimaced and turned his head away. "If you need someone to fight, I'll fight for you."

"And if I said you were nothing more than a disposable tool, not viable for use in the age to come?" Lysandre asked, tone dripping with contempt. "You're a Mega Evolution user, and an adept one to be sure. But I have Malva at my disposal, and many others in my employ who use it as well." He threw an arm out towards the ruined Lumiose, and the twin serpents rampaging throughout the streets. "And with them under my thrall, you, who have no true loyalty to me, are little more than a liability."

He turned towards me, and favored me with a fatherly smile. His eyes were deceptively kind, and I could feel a true affection from him that made me shudder. "Ash. Greninja. If you could demonstrate your power for me now?"

"Alain," I ground out, struggling to speak through the intoxicating haze of the Mega Evolution energy, "is a stronger trainer than me. He proved that in the Lumiose Conference."

"Oh?" Lysandre seemed puzzled. "There is a difference between sport for the entertainment of the masses and a true fight for one's life. I heard of your unofficial match with Diantha from the Champion herself. She told me you had an unrelenting ferocity there that was absent in your league performance."

That much was true. My heart was soaring with joy on that great stage, fighting my friend with the whole world watching. But with the opportunity to test my might against a Champion, I felt that there, right then, even with the only audience being my friends and Diantha herself, I needed to break the boundaries. Every self imposed limitation shattered.

 _I was Greninja, wrapped in a spiraling wave, and I held a blade of light in my hand, intent on using it to finish off Gardevoir as she writhed on the ground in pain at her trainer's feet._

I witnessed the shock on Diantha's face and felt a deep lust well within my heart. Ink splattered across my field of vision and quickly overtook it in haphazard streaks. It wasn't something so dramatic as a manifestation of malice or black marks staining my soul. My heart was giving out. I wasn't receiving enough oxygen to my brain.

"Don't you want revenge, Ash?" Lysandre drawled, flexing his fingers. I could hear the leather crinkle of his fingerless gloves and idly noted that superficial similarity between us.

 _Did you start out like me, Lysandre? At one point, did you leave your hometown and set out on the route north with your most precious partner?_

"Not enough to kill him over it," I said. I glanced over at Greninja and he croaked his agreement.

"I could just make you."

"But you won't. You know that you need to make some concessions for me if a long term partnership is going to work, mind control beams or otherwise."

"That's a strange assumption."

Was it? No. If I could still think for myself, and move under my own power, then there were limits to Lysandre's compulsions.

"I'll stand against the world with you, Lysandre, but my friends aren't a part of that world."

Lysandre hummed lowly. "Well said. You are one of my chosen humans, which affords you status in my new world. Consequently, I don't mind you choosing some of your own to partake in this genesis as well. But Alain isn't particularly close to you. In exchange for sparing that girl and that gym leader, will you not give me this at least?"

"There won't even need to be a fight." I reached out towards Alain with my hand. "No hard feelings, Alain."

He was a skilled trainer, and quick on the draw to release his pokemon, but the speed of thought and an unexpected vector of action surpassed his reflexes. I remembered the way the King of Pokelantis had manipulated my aura to telekinetically manipulate distant objects, and Charizard's pokeball shot into my hand with an exertion of will.

 _Only Charizard? Where is the team he used in the finals?_

I turned the miniaturized monster ball over in my hand. Within the palm of my hand was the instrument of my defeat. Yet another impassable wall to my dreams, small as a marble and so fragile, completely at my mercy.

But twisted or no, there were lines I would never cross.

Alain balled his hands into fists and snarled. "Charizard!"

"How unsatisfactory," Lysandre said.

"I'm not here to entertain you," I said. I felt my arm quake, and the ball expanded in my hand. My eyes widened, and I felt a sharp pain as the ball burst with pneumatic sharpness, the action jostling my bones.

A beam of light shot towards Alain, and resolved into Charizard standing in front of him in a defensive stance. The stone on his neck shone red, reflecting the cast-off light produced by the shrouds covering myself and Greninja.

"Is Mairin one of your chosen, Ash?" Alain glanced down at the keystone on his wrist and grit his teeth. "If Lysandre told you to kill her, what would you do? Do you even know who I'm talking about?"

"I met her once."

"If it was between her and that girl you travel with, what would you do?"

"I'd find a way to spare them both."

Lysandre smiled.

"And if you couldn't?" Alain growled. "If it was between your friends, and Mairin, or Professor Sycamore, who would you cut down?" He raised his arm up and balled it into a fist. "I already know your answer."

I nodded.

Beside me, Greninja unfolded his arms and opened his eyes wide. They were wild, furious orbs of jaundiced yellow, with irides the color of an inflamed wound, and the white pupils within them reminded me of the cataracts of a an old man rotting on his deathbed.

Still, there was no denying the power within him. I felt my consciousness bleed into his in the nascent stage of our Bond Phenomenon, accessible even in our violated state.

He too held hate and resentment within him.

 _Why did I fall before my liege, when we both weathered the flames of Charizard's Blast Burn? How dare this pretender dragon make me look the fool at the apex of my development?_

I wanted to bring Ash his victory.

Ash blames himself- _when a trainer wins, it's because of his pokemon, but when a pokemon falls, it's the fault of the trainer-_ but I had never put stock in that philosophy, because it diminished my own efforts and cast aspersions on my agency in battle.

Here, then: _to the hated rival I have never overcome, and to the world that witnessed my humiliation-_ this is my counterattack.


	2. Chapter 2

Alain made the first move.

Two fingers slipped onto the stone on his bracelet.

His wave rang out, _"For his sake, let's not drag this out. It's for the best if Charizard and I finish this quickly and with our full power."_

But before his lips could complete the first syllable of the chant that focused his bond and catalyzed Charizard's ascension, tendrils of my aura wrapped around his ankles and I pulled, forcing him to his knees and breaking his concentration.

Greninja surged forward with a fist blazing with Flying Type energy, burying it in Charizard's gut. The beast let out a strangled gasp, and with the other hand Greninja manifested a kunai of white light.

 _Aren't you underestimating us, Alain?_

Greninja roared, and _slashed,_ severing the leather bands fastening the gorget around Charizard's neck. The first stage of our Bond Phenomenon surged, manifesting a torrent of water that whipped about and caught the accessory, sending it careening through the air to plummet to the city below.

"Oh?" Lysandre hummed beside me. He chuckled. "I suppose that's one way to deal with Mega Evolution."

Alain growled. "Charizard, catch it!"

My aura lost its hold on him as he rolled to one side. In one smooth motion, he transitioned from the roll into a backflip, putting more distance between us on the strip.

I reached out again, but my inexperience with aura worked against me- my range fell short, and the tendrils fizzled out before they could reclaim their grip.

But right there, before he fell out of my range-

 _I felt a quicksilver impression._

"Thunder Punch!" Alain called, and Charizard thrust a fist chirping with lightning into the shroud of water. I felt my own muscles lock up as the current flowed through Greninja, and Charizard took flight. He caught the gorget before it could fall into the distance, and gripped it tight in his claws.

"Respond to my heart, keystone!" called Alain, slipping two fingers onto the ring around his wrist. "Surpass evolution- Mega Evolution!"

We recovered from our fleeting paralysis. Greninja jumped and slashed at Charizard, but the transformation was already in progress, and he was rebuffed by serial pulses of Mega Evolution energy emanating from Charizard as its flesh twisted and boiled. I could hear the creaking of bones and the popping of joints as its frame mutated, becoming larger and more imposing, orange flesh darkening to pitch.

Blue flames streamed from its mouth as it roared in ecstasy. Mega Charizard hovered over us in its draconic glory, blue-tipped tail swinging, white-pupiled eyes feral with battlelust.

I thumped a fist against my chest and felt my power surge. Blue mixed with red and a purple miasma curled about my form. "We'll get stronger too then."

Greninja landed, and the torrent of water went wild, before the innermost layer compressed itself tight against his skin- our skin. Jagged rows of black frills sprouted from the sides of our crest, which became more prominent upon our head and burned bright red.

 _Go, Ash-Greninja!_ Bonnie's voice cheered in my head, and I cracked a smile before being overcome with disgust.

A flurry of miniature water shurikens left my hands, spinning blades of compressed water capable of splitting steel. They pinged impotently against the tough dragon's hide, and I let out a huff of frustration as Charizard responded with a stream of blue flames that missed us by a hair. The fire burned hot enough to melt a hole in the steel frame we were standing on, and the acrid smell of molten metal filled my nostrils.

Alain's hand contorted into a claw and he thrust it out towards me. "Dragon Claw!"

Charizard dove down to our level, brandishing six swordlike claws of green energy. I knew intimately just how much damage even a glancing blow could do, and stopped them before they could cave in our chest cavity with crossed twin blades of blue water.

My hands were full, and a proper Double Team required the focus of a handsign to execute-

-but the hands of my human body were unoccupied, and they came together to form a cross.

Shadow clones surrounded Charizard. Alain stared quizzically at them.

 _What was the point of illusions when Charizard was in a deadlock with the genuine article?_

Then one of the clones sprang up and smashed a fist imbued with Aerial Ace into Charizard's jaw. The clone's arm exploded in a spray of water, but the damage was done. Off balance and flailing, Charizard's neck was wide open and I laid into it with my twin blades.

One slash became two, then three, four, a dozen and a dozen more, finishing with a brutal sweep more evocative of a baseball swing than an iai form, and the dragon roared in anger as it was sent soaring off the side of the tower with a bruised neck and battered pride.

But that was it. That amount of damage would have waylaid even a Darkrai, but Mega Charizard seemed hardly phased as it spread its wings wide to arrest its motion.

Alain scowled. "Flamethrower, clear them out!"

The clones leapt in pursuit, but they were quickly dispelled by a wide plume of fire that lit up the dusk in a cobalt haze. White steam consumed the atmosphere before being chilled by the cool evening air and condensing into droplets that fell upon the battle in an ersatz rain.

I brought my human hands up to form the sign once more, and twin shadow clones manifested to either side of me, crouched in a defensive stance with an empty hand primed over the opposite shoulder.

The water cloaks around us compressed themselves into spiraling orbs upon our backs, which then resolved into three four-pointed stars. We reared back, and shucked the Giant Water Shuriken into the air. They reached their apex scraping the bottom of the clouds, then entered a meteoric fall towards the dragon.

"Flamethrower!"

The dragon roared, and that roar heralded a monolithic wave of blue fire that consumed the shuriken and broke through the cloudline, continuing into infinity to superheat the sky itself.

The crackle of electricity. The rumbling of young thunder. The world darkened, and the shower created by the vaporized clones was consumed by the downpour of a genuine storm.

 _Spearow, do you know who I am?_

I grasped the wrist of one of my clones, and hurled it with all my strength towards Charizard. Midflight, the shuriken upon its back regenerated; even after Charizard dispelled the clone with a contemptuous flick of its tail, the shuriken endured, and scored a direct hit upon him.

Charizard grunted, but seemed mostly unaffected by the attack. I grit my teeth. The ultimate expression of my power may as well have been a mosquito bite to him. I felt sparks of pride and satisfaction from Alain, and briefly detested him for managing to glean even the slightest pleasure from this loathsome encounter.

 _I'm Ash from the town of Pallet._

"Charizard, Dragon Claw!"

Imbuing Aerial Ace into my entire body, I flashed to the side as Charizard crashed into my previous position with emerald tridents outstretched, flushed with draconic energies, bisecting my remaining clone. They drove themselves deep into the steel frame of the tower as though it was something immaterial.

The storm hit a crescendo, and the sky cried its misery as lightning began to strike all across Lumiose, smiting the tops of buildings, spreading violet-hued fire throughout the streets. The twin Zygarde paused in their rampage, apparently entranced with the din of thunder and the strobing flash of lightning. The one I assumed to be Squishy raised its head up and twitched, seemingly taking in the strong smell of ozone.

Charizard ripped its claws from the gouges and straightened up. It glanced towards me and raised its chin, the ghost of a smirk present on its lips. The expression was mirrored on Alain.

 _A red-haired young girl with tears in her eyes._

 _A baby Chespin with wasted limbs and a drawn, pallid face._

 _I must be the strongest. I cannot lose to anyone anymore._

I felt myself tremble with an ambivalent passion.

 _I am destined to be the world's number one Pokemon Master._

I drew the Giant Water Shuriken from my back, and held it by a single point in a hammer grip. The weapon shifted in my hand, one blade extending, two blades waning, becoming a facsimile of a western sword, patterned upon Sawyer's Aegislash.

I began to walk slowly towards Charizard.

I twirled the sword once, hoping it would evoke images of our penultimate clash in the finals of the league.

Alain's eyes widened. He formed two white-knuckled fists and punched them together. "Thunder Punch!"

Charizard's claws crackled with static.

 _I can't be defeated by the likes of you._

A bolt speared out of the storm clouds towards the closest lightning rod.

The dragon was smote by natural lightning, three times as hot as the shell of the sun at the moment of impact, and blinding white light consumed the world.

* * *

Alain and I stood in a void.

I'd seen such a place before: ever since coming to Kalos, I'd been able to connect with the hearts of others while in a battle with them, a world where it was possible to communicate beyond the limitations of words.

But was this such a place?

With Clemont, it was a world within a thunderbolt, fitting for a fleeting battle of unmatched intensity between two trainers with an affinity for the Electric Type.

With Sawyer, an arid desert of golden sand, representing both his desperate thirst for knowledge and his need to see my footsteps clearly as I walked ahead of him.

Before, with Alain- he'd viewed me as the master of a blue, burning battlefield, overwhelmed by a foreign heart tempered by conflict all across the world, brought to Kalos, aching for victory.

Then I saw into his heart, a muted world of prismatic color, where the only thing that existed was a single window to view Mairin.

This was not that world. Not the dull prism or the burning battlefield. We stood on a surface of nothing within an absolute void.

Mega Charizard writhed in between us, speared by the fangs of a qilin fashioned from a thunderbolt, six vibrating eyes leering beadily at the morsel in its maw.

The fake dragon who became the genuine article was at the mercy of the natural born puppet of a mythical beast.

Greninja appeared beside me, quivering with anger.

 _Sorry, buddy. I know this isn't as fulfilling as you were expecting. But this isn't a fight we should have wanted to win in the first place. If we don't get any satisfaction from this...yeah, wouldn't that be best?_

Greninja glared at me, before sighing and lowering his head. It wasn't as though I didn't understand the sentiment- losing _sucked_ , and I knew that better than most, but the crimson haze of Mega Evolution energy shadowing us even in this questionably real metaphysical void was a stark reminder that no matter how sharp we felt during the battle, neither of us were in our right minds during it.

I'd been described as an idiot savant before by some, or less charitably a _moron_ by the likes of Misty, Iris, and sometimes May or Dawn, but even I could tell the mechanical efficiency Greninja and I had used versus Charizard and Alain in this last round was wholly unnatural. I looked at Greninja, standing proud despite the circumstances.

 _Completely unscathed._

"Alain," I said. "I'm sorry about this match. This really wasn't how I wanted to fight you."

Alain scoffed. "Even the 'you' right now was able to make me smile towards the end. As sordid as this entire affair is," he cracked a smile and shook his head, "it's good to know that you're still in there, even a little."

"I won't let Lysandre hurt Mairin."

"You know you can't make a promise like that."

I grit my teeth. "I just did!"

"You shouldn't have. It's not a promise you can keep." Alain sighed. "Besides, protecting Mairin is my job. One I've done nothing but botch ever since I pushed her away in Hoenn."

"That's not fair to you. You've been doing your best."

"Don't patronize me, Ash!" Alain growled. His hand contorted into a claw and he clutched at his chest. "What's the point of doing your best if you don't succeed?!"

I had a rebuttal.

One based in my entire life up to this point.

I couldn't bring myself to give it.

 _And after all, isn't he right? This violated me is proof perfect that just doing your best isn't enough to justify your actions._

 _This isn't losing a league, falling, and coming back up with the guts to keep on trucking._

I thought of the things Lysandre was likely to make me do, of the twin Zygarde rampaging throughout the city, of the myriad roots primed to break the planet itself, and knew that I would soon be an instrument in that apocalypse.

I took a deep breath. "When this connection is broken, and we have to continue this farce, I need you to escape."

"How in the world do you expect me to do that?"

I _tsk_ ed. "C'mon, Alain. Giving up so easily?"

"You struck Charizard down with a _lightning bolt."_

"I know you've got Metagross holstered in another pokeball hidden in the lining of your jacket. I felt his presence when I tried to hold you down to stop Charizard's Mega Evolution."

Silence.

"How?"

"That's not important. Recall Charizard. Jump off the tower and have Metagross levitate you to safety."

"Metagross can't handle one of those shuriken. He's still weak from the finals."

"Greninja can't fly."

Greninja tilted his head and the end of his tongue twitched towards the shuriken on his back.

 _Probably._

"Metagross can't fly."

"No psychokinesis?"

Alain sighed. "He's physically spec'd. I had him forget it for Agility."

"Then serial Meteor Mashes until you make it to safety on a rooftop."

 _"Meteor Mash_ to _fly_?"

"More like glide, but close enough."

"Only you…" Alain trailed off and chuckled.

"There's a window of opportunity while the lightning bolt still blinds us. Use it to leap off the tower. Mairin," I began, trying to ignore the way his features tightened and his fists clenched upon hearing the name. I closed my eyes and recalled the way I'd tracked Riolu across entire mountain ranges. I'd only met Mairin once, and hadn't been acutely aware of aura at the time, but I instantly locked onto a far more familiar presence and a smaller, weaker one cuddled beside her, "is heading southwest in a helicopter with Serena."

"How do you even know that?" Alain blinked. "No, nevermind, that's not important. This isn't some kind of ruse?"

I glared at him. " _Serena_ is with her. You think I'd use her name for a trick?"

"Ah." Alain coughed into his fist. "I understand. She's to you what Mairin is to me."

I shook my head. What did that have to do with anything? "Sure. Just...get to _her_ \- both of them. Get to Mairin, keep her safe. Keep _everyone_ there safe. From Flare, from Lysandre, from me. Get them out of Kalos if you can. Lysandre is strong as long as he has Zygarde, but there are much, much more dangerous things in this world than Zygarde. They'll keep him in check."

"What about you?"

"I don't matter. Right now, I'm an instrument of Team Flare." I smiled at him. "I'm dedicated to their cause, _and I don't give up until the very end."_

Charizard was consumed by the qilin, and the void split in two.


	3. Chapter 3

When the light cleared, Alain was gone.

The place where Charizard had been struck was warped and gnarled, an iron crater defined by an array of thin circles. Here and there, jagged outcroppings reaching out of the edges of the concentric whorls. Molten metal, red-hot and still smoking, cooled and became sharp silver edges.

"What amazing power," Lysandre breathed beside me. Even while awed, he paid careful consideration to his fashion, carefully adjusting his suit and combing what dirt he could out of his fur collar with careful sweeps of his fingertips.

What was the point? He was still soaked to the bone.

In my mind's eye, I saw a fashionable young girl with her brow furrowed. Serena? Dawn? May? Even when she spoke, I couldn't place the impression.

 _Even the finest materials in the universe aren't rated to wick away the kind of moisture that comes from being caught in a thunderstorm. Really, what a prima donna._

Coming from you, whoever you are, that's hilarious.

 _And what kind of psycho wears a cravat with a leather, fur-lined suit? No, who wears a leather, fur-lined suit to begin with?! I swear, the eccentric rich. Terrible taste._

Lysandre is kind of a literal psycho, if you haven't noticed. And what does his clothing have to do with that?

She winked at me and stuck out the tip of her tongue. A soft croak brought me back to reality. Greninja was staring at me oddly with extremely dilated pupils.

 _You saw that too?_

Apparently through grooming himself, Lysandre laughed and spread his arms wide. "Bond Phenomenon lets you control the weather itself? The ability to tame even thunder…"

I cocked my head in time with Greninja. Is that what he thought we did?

"I know now, more than ever, that this wasn't a mistake." Lysandre caught my eye and smiled, giving off a warm, paternal grace. He placed his hands upon my shoulders. I resisted the urge to wince. He smelled like charcoal and oiled leather. "Ash. Greninja. You shall be as a herald for the masses. This unique ability is going to be essential in the world to come."

I bit my tongue, really dug into it with my molars, but the words fell out of my mouth.

"Thank you, Director."

If he noticed the line of blood that dripped out of the corner of my mouth as I struggled against that garbled phrase, he didn't care. He just kept holding me, pinning me down with warm eyes.

"Please, just _Lysandre._ I _insist._ You've long since been above the plebeians on my payroll or the sheep following in my wake."

I shuddered.

 _Stop, stop, stop._

The moment was thankfully broken by a muffled ringing. Lysandre produced a device from within his jacket, something small and slick and incredibly expensive-looking. When the upper half of a rotund man was projected from it, the name hit me.

Holocaster.

Some kind of fancy video phone. Serena and Bonnie had talked my ear off about it on a day when we'd gone window shopping in a high-end electronics store. Clemont hadn't been quite as charitable, rattling off all its deficiencies in a stream of jargon I couldn't comprehend, finally decrying it as an _overpriced sham of a novelty with insufficient practical utility!_

"Xerosic," said Lysandre. He glared at the little hologram.

I didn't know this Xerosic, and was certain he was beyond deplorable if he was the kind of man to have an open line to Lysandre during this invasion, but couldn't help feeling a profound gratitude towards him.

"Director Lysandre, we have a problem. That Gym Leader boy, and that automaton of his...they've breached the last line of defense!"

"Oh?" Lysandre chuckled. "Dear Xerosic, you sound so fearful. Are you truly so intimidated by a single boy and his doll?"

"They're at the control nexus already, I can't- ah!" The hologram broke into motes of static. "Essentia, _ESSENTIA,_ battle stance! Director Lysandre, please, they're far more powerful than anticipated, I need-"

Click.

Lysandre smiled down at me.

"Bumbling fool... nonetheless, his expertise is irreplaceable. What do you say, dear Ash? Are you and Greninja up for a little more play?"

"Clemont," I said. "That's Clemont and Clembot down there. You're asking us to fight them?"

"If you don't, Xerosic's precious Essentia will. And she has far fewer compunctions in battle than you and I. For all of Xerosic's cowardice, I've no doubt that there's a good chance such an encounter could prove fatal for your friend."

I grit my teeth. Turning away from Lysandre, I looked up at my Pokemon, still stunned and restrained, held aloft by those floating black bindings. I swept a thumb over the pokeballs on my belt, and they were all recalled by beams of red light.

All except one. All except Pikachu, who remained there. Hovering, watching me with those accusing dark eyes.

 _Stop looking at me like that._

Lysandre flicked a thumb against the glass panel on front of the Holocaster, and Pikachu descended to me. With another careless swipe across the glass, he fell into my arms.

"Pikapi?"

He was tense in my arms. His eyes flitted between me and Greninja.

"We're going somewhere you and the rest of the team can't go now, Pikachu," I whispered.

Pikachu chittered. _Fight. Fight like you always do. And if you're all addled and screwed up like you are now, then I'll just shock you to wake you up. That's how it's always been._

His cheeks sparked, but the Thunderbolt was drawn into the black spheres before it could complete the circuit with my body. _Chu. Chuuuu….!_ Each further attempt was equally futile.

I drew his pokeball from my belt and tapped it against his head. I braced myself against the sharp feeling of betrayal as he was digitized and sucked into the monster ball, and the silence which came after gave me a moment to swallow my shame.

 _Right before the Spearows descended, I tried to recall you to save your life. It's the same thing here. Exactly the same thing. Bear with this for now, Pikachu._

 _We'll get you and the others into the arms of someone I trust, and god willing we'll never see each other again._

I looked at Greninja. _I am not wrong._

He avoided my gaze and busied himself with surveying the city. _Yes. If we can keep the little lord free from that poison of the mind, that would be for the best._

 _This was not wrong._

"If you're worried about their loyalty, I could use my machine on them, Ash," Lysandre said. "A...questionable use of resources to be sure, but your Pikachu proved itself quite the fighter during the finals."

"No." I looked up at him. "Greninja and I will start from zero, this time."

Lysandre shrugged. "Very well then." He turned and made for the elevator leading down into the tower. "Let's go help that little toad now, shall we? You know, I think you'll _like_ that Essentia. She's about your age. Perhaps she'll make for a decent replacement for those groupies of yours."

 _Don't turn your back on me._ I felt my hand twitch, and noticed the swirls of light building in Greninja's palm. _One of these days..._

Greninja dropped his hand, and dropped the light.

We followed Lysandre into the elevator, and descended.


	4. Chapter 4

I trembled with excitement.

It cut straight through the guilt and lit a fire in me.

I glanced at Greninja. With his usual shinobi discipline, it was hard to tell, but we couldn't keep secrets from each other. I grinned at him, and knew he returned the expression under the cover of his tongue.

 _You didn't use me in that gym match. I've always wanted to fight Luxray with something real on the line._

A _real_ fight with Clemont. Not one colored by weeks of anticipation and focused training. Greninja and I against the full might of a Kalos Gym Leader. I felt the rush of the Mega Evolution energy raging through my veins and held tight to the soaring feeling it gave me.

A true battle, no holds barred, no referee to decide when we've hit our limits.

Going beyond prize or pride in a battle that could draw full power from even someone as meek as Clemont.

I'd never fought someone important to me under those circumstances.

I loved new challenges.

 _And it's fine, right? Ultimately, I'm doing this to save him._

Lysandre flicked his eyes towards me then chuckled. "You're in a far better mood now."

"I've never…" I shook my head. The energy was addling my brain. Or was that my own adrenaline? "I've never fought a friend like this. Never fought one for real. Is it wrong, that I'm excited?"

"It's not wrong." Lysandre grinned. "Not at all. It's only natural for the strong to want to flex their power against a worthy opponent." The grin twisted into a smirk. "I speak, of course, of the automaton Xerosic spoke of. I doubt an out-of-practice, neophytic Gym Leader like the boy will pose much of a challenge to you."

I glared at him. "You underestimate the power of the Kalos Gym Leaders. You're underestimating _my friend."_

Lysandre hummed. He clasped his hands together at the small of his back. "We'll agree to disagree then. But I acknowledge the power of... _most_ of the defenders of Kalos. The Elite Four are a given. Wulfric's Mega Abomasnow is quite a force to be reckoned with, and I've been keeping a close eye on that Korrina girl's development. That Mega Lucario of hers would be a fine asset for Team Flare."

 _"_ _Don't you lay a hand on her."_

Lysandre raised an eyebrow. "Have I touched a nerve?"

"No." I looked away. "Forget it."

"Hmph." Lysandre shook his head. "To be young again…"

I thought back to my time with Korrina.

I'd met people like me before- Angie from Sinnoh shared my habits and temper, and Richie from the Indigo League shared my looks and taste in pokemon.

But those were superficial compared to what I had in common with _Korrina._

I'd never met people _like me_ before. Not before her.

Korrina and I were _kindred spirits._

We acted like gravity wasn't a thing. We tended to leap first, and look never.

It was beyond being _reckless_ or _dumb,_ which was something I had in common with more than one or a hundred thousand people I'd met over the years. We had the same kind of heart- a heart that beat loud and clear in anything we did, from gobbling down lunch to intense pokemon training. And that wasn't just some sappy sentiment thing that'd stuck with me after years of having to deal with Brock after he got into one of his ranty romance moods.

No. Korrina and I both had strong wave: we knew _aura,_ and I hadn't known a human to have one so close in feeling to my own before we started traveling together.

Sir Aaron's Lucario? That scrappy Riolu that got into trouble with Hunter J? Yeah. I didn't even blink after learning I shared some special soul thing with a pokemon, because _of course_ I did.

But a human with a compatible wave? One that wasn't some long-dead mythical hero with his very own tapestry hung up in some ancient throne room?

Korrina was my first and only.

I wasn't sure if it was on purpose, but she'd used the Sight once to pick Lucario's aura out of the universal wave over a pretty big distance. As far as I knew, she wasn't capable of locking onto the signature then picking up all the waves around it to "scry" a full scene. She hadn't created an aura sphere or anything crazy either, but it was obvious to anyone if you knew what to look for- she was acutely aware of everything around her, like she was looking at everything even where she didn't have eyes. She moved with a certain grace and casually pulled off almost superhuman feats of agility.

It was intimidating. If her demonstration right before our gym battle was the norm, and she subjected every challenger to that kind of mind game right before a match, then I wasn't surprised she had such a good record as a Gym Leader and Trainer, that she could win a hundred unofficial matches straight, even before getting the power of Mega Evolution.

She'd left a strong impression, even if our time together wasn't more than a few weeks. I wasn't a fan of introspection, or deeply analyzing my friends, but I thought about her. A lot. Walking beside her on the road, I often caught myself making idle comparisons between us.

It was frustrating. I didn't think often, unless it was about pokemon training and the battles to come, preferring to go with the flow and lose myself in whatever passing entertainment we came across as we traveled the world.

Really, really frustrating. I found myself looking up at the older blonde often, and couldn't stop even after Bonnie had pointed it out with a sly face and sharp tongue, making a scene that had poor Serena red and angry with the harassment Bonnie was subjecting our new friend to, and Clemont just as confused-looking as I felt at her nonsense accusations.

Really. There was a big, big difference between Brock's fascination with girls and my _fascination_ with Korrina.

I remembered a conversation I'd had with Pikachu, one night after everyone had fallen asleep.

 _"They asked me about you, you know. Lucario can sense your aura. It frightens him."_

 _The drawbacks to traveling with a member of the most aura sensitive species. There was a reason I'd pressed Dawn to forget what she'd seen during the Riolu incident, and why we'd gotten way out of dodge after that crazy old bat had hassled me about it after we'd saved her town from the Spiritomb._

 _I blinked. "Eh? Why would it do that?"_

 _"He says he's never found another human with such a potent 'fingerprint.' Even Gurkinn and Korrina, and they're from a bloodline of very powerful Aura Guardians."_

 _"Ah." I lowered the brim of my cap. "Okay."_

 _"He hasn't told Korrina about it, if that's what you're worried about."_

 _I scoffed. "Why would I care?"_

 _Pikachu shot me a severe look. A 'don't try to BS me young man, I've known you for far too many years for you to try pulling the sulky brat act on me' look. Where he'd picked it up, I didn't know. Misty? Brock? ….Mom?_

 _"Aaaaagh," I groaned and buried my face in my hands. "Alright, alright. Whatever. Get to the point, Pikachu."_

 _Pikachu let out a pleased "chuuuu" and crossed his little arms. "You can't just ignore it forever, you know. You skipped Rota when they opened their library to you, and you ditched Riley as fast as possible when he mentioned training at Iron Island, but it's a part of you and I hate hate hate you acting so skittish about it. Korrina and the Tower of Mastery is a whole new opportunity, and this time with someone you actually like."_

 _"Pikachu…" I chuckled. "I'm not like Sir Aaron. I'm not the kind of superhero who could stop a war singlehandedly, or make my best buddy hate me in some crazy long-con for the greater good."_

 _Pikachu chittered. "You ever stick me in a ball for hundreds of years to 'keep me safe,' I swear to god, I'll relearn Thunder when I get out just to put you in traction for a few weeks."_

 _"Er. Hundreds of years later? I'd be dead. Very, very dead. Right?"_

 _"Ash, I'm almost entirely sure you wouldn't die even if you were killed."_

 _I thought back to the time with Haunter and his friends, and laughed. Yeah, that was fun._

 _"Man, Pikachu, quit distracting me." I shook my head and tried to get back my train of thought. "Y'know, Iris is right- I'm just a kid who wants to be a pokemon master. No more, no less, and if I can avoid tossing around magic energy balls and becoming some kind of superhero, I will."_

 _"They'd all still accept you, you know."_

 _I bit my lip._

 _"This trip in Kalos? Serena, Clemont, and Bonnie know less about you than even Iris and Cilan did. You're afraid of alienating them and I can't even comprehend why: after the incident with the Mirror World you know they'd accept you no matter how much you opened up to them! You're being a coward, Ash Ketchum."_

 _"...Serena still knows me as just Ash, some kid she met at Summer Camp." I glanced at Pikachu. He rolled his eyes and I pouted. Jerk. "Like Angie did. Does. I like it that way. I'm...it's tempting, but I'm not gonna let this weird feeling Korrina gives me ruin that."_

 _I raised a hand. A screeching sound filled the air as life energy bloomed within me and surged through my arm into my hand, swirling blue coming to life, grinding and growing, layer upon layer of infinite slivers, becoming an orb of light clutched in the palm of my hand._

 _I heard a muffled gasp behind me._

I felt my stomach lurch.

Ding.

The elevator door slid open.

Lysandre placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. "I'm looking forward to seeing more of what you have to offer, Ash. Against this boy, and all the forces of Kalos. All the despicable humans who would protect the status quo of this rotten world."

"Okay." My hand trembled. "Watch closely then."

Greninja and I followed Lysandre into the darkness of Prism Tower.


	5. Chapter 5

My awareness spread throughout the tower.

Aura Sight worked on the principle of resonance: all things possessed wave, so all things were basically similar.

It was this resonance, the energy produced when two things interacted to become more than the sum of their parts, that let me see without sight.

The wave allowed me insight and prescience even as I followed Lysandre in the dark.

Most people only had as much wave presence as a block of wood, but I was familiar enough with Clemont's to locate him in seconds.

He stood opposite a stout man I assumed to be Xerosic.

Luxray, Bunnelby, and Chespin unleashed their attacks against a Malamar, a tri-type combination which it caught with a clever use of psychokinesis and snuffed into smoke. A swift Crobat flitted in the darkness where the emergency lights did not cover, body flush with the glow of Acrobatics.

A Magneton and Magnemite engaged it from afar, unleashing thin streaks of blue lightning that branched to become a web of lasers. Crobat barrel rolled, dodging the lightning streams by a hair: the edge of his wing sparked with harmless static as the beams shot past to fizzle out on the wall behind it.

One one hundredth of a second. Expending the boost of Acrobatics, Crobat flashed to the Magnemite and sent it crashing into the Magneton with a sharp slash of its wings. The Steel Types were locked against each other by their entangled magnets, and crashed into the wall with enough force to spiderweb cracks across the surface.

Clembot had a hand buried into the floor. Cabled tentacles shot from coin-sized exit holes and twisted through the air, hunting a distant target.

A Volcarona loomed overhead, taking evasive maneuvers to dodge the tentacles. A few clever turns, and the tentacles wound around themselves into a tight knot.

Less than twenty meters.

Volcarona covered them in a second, wreathed in fire, and smashed into Clembot's chest with enough force to break it from its link with the machine. The stump of Clembot's arm sparked at the elbow. Its severed hand and forearm went limp and fell from the machine's service hatch.

Volcarona opened its mouth and charged a ball of flame.

"Like I'd let you!"

It was blinded by a flash of light from a radar dish extended over Clemont's shoulder by a segmented arm, fashioned after the frills of a Heliolisk. It was very him, and I found myself smiling.

Volcarona flinched, turning. The fireball spent itself impotently on the roof of the gym, sending down a shower of embers.

Clemont ignored the bits of flame burning his face, and decked Volcarona with the clenched fist of his Aipom Arm. Volcarona was sent careening back towards Xerosic, spinning like a pinwheel. The pale man braced himself, but it was unnecessary. Volcarona was deflected to the side by a spinning kick from the girl on Xerosic's right-

 _It was supposed to be a simple part-time job._

 _And for a girl like her, who'd never known shelter or a steady paycheck, it was the opportunity of a lifetime._

"Aaah-" I bit my lip and drew blood.

There was a warped presence there, nearly shut off from the rest of the world, but there was enough leaking out to see. It made me uneasy. A shadow in a world without sufficient light to cast it.

 _He strapped her into the machine._

 _Hate. Rage. Disgust._

 _But a childlike admiration that smothered it all into background noise._

I didn't have that admiration. There wasn't a buffer keeping me from feeling like a dog's chew toy. I held tight to the feeling of violation and internalized it.

Blood drained from my face.

I felt so cold.

The anticipation of facing Clemont in genuine battle was stoked by my own lusts and the rush of mega evolution energy, but the taint of that girl's memories made it a caustic, chemical fire. No longer my favorite color.

It was ruined.

Greninja placed a webbed hand on my shoulder, and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

I looked up at him.

 _I'm at your side. No matter what path you walk._

We continued to follow Lysandre.

I screwed my eyes shut. I relied on wave for direction, carefully moderating my senses to only a few feet in any direction. As much as I wanted to see Clemont's current fight, I kept my sight reined in. Too much information there. Didn't have the skill to filter it out.

-I'd be crippled by emotional bleedthrough before even making it to the arena.

Chespin, Bunnelby, Luxray.

Magnemite, Magneton...no Heliolisk.

It was likely Magnemite and Magneton would already be out of commission by the time we arrived. The Crobat and Malamar were strong. The Volcarona moreso, but Clembot learned best through firsthand experience. Even missing an arm, it would have a counter for the sun moth soon.

Maybe it would only be the ace left?

Greninja nodded. _It would be preferable not to have to waste my time humoring the glutton and the cynic._

I winced. _Harsh._

Greninja smiled.

Ha. I loved the little guy, but Chespin really was more talented at snacking on pokepuffs than fighting terrorists.

We made it to the entrance of the gym.

I opened my eyes.

Lysandre turned to me. He removed my hat, then combed his fingers through my hair, grooming me. He favored me with a small smile, then ruined his efforts by putting my hat back on. Splaying out his long arm, he gestured at the gym.

"It's your show, Ash."

In the next second I broke out of the cover of darkness, and into the red-tinted battlefield of the Lumiose City Gym.

A girl in some helmeted, sci-fi battlesuit took center stage. _Essentia_ thrust out her arm. A synthesized voice rang out from speakers built into a grill at her jaw. "Volcarona, Fiery Dance."

Volcarona spun in place, then erupted into a corona of flames.

 _She's aiming for Clemont._

It moved from stillness with an audible crack, trailing fire in its wake.

"Greninja, Water Shuriken!"

Greninja vaulted over me, and using my shoulder as a platform, leapt high into the air. Gouts of water span out of the ether and became shuriken clutched between each finger.

With a guttural cry, he launched them at Volcarona.

Its meteoric fall was interrupted by the shuriken, which burst into steam upon contact, but redirected its course with the impact. Volcarona's fire sputtered out right before it veered into the trainer's platform on the other side of the gym.

It twitched at the bottom of the resulting crater.

Clemont turned towards me, and his face lit up with a wide smile. "Ash!"

"Xerosic!" I shouted. "You and Essentia back off! He's mine!"

I could _feel_ the confusion rolling off Clemont in waves.

"Oh?" Xerosic tilted his head. The effect was strange on a man as overweight as him, possessing very little in the way of a neck. "Ah, so Director Lysandre was successful then! Good to have you. Yes, yes, by all means!"

 _Don't act like you're glad to see me._

 _Shut up. Shut up._

 _You aren't safe from me either._

Essentia remained silent. It was unnatural how still she was. I wondered if she was even breathing.

...Did she even need to?

 _No. Don't think about stuff like that. That's just your imagination getting away from you. They just tailored some fancy suit for her._

 _Really, really pointless, to keep dwelling on this. You don't know anything about science, not like Clemont, so quit with the pop-sci manga speculation and get your head back in the game._

I didn't want to think about anything.

 _Even if it's only for a minute, let me lose myself in the fight to come._

"Successful?" Clemont mumbled. His eyes widened. "Then if you're here, speaking so familiarly to them… that aura around you and Greninja, whatever Team Flare did to the Zygarde out there, they must have…"

I heard the eerily humanlike laugh of the Malamar as it floated back to Xerosic's side, and the sharp whistle of the Crobat as it descended to orbit him.

Volcarona struggled to pull itself out of the crater.

Essentia turned towards it, and without any discernable emotion, returned it. Casually, she walked to join her fellows. I watched her go, trying to ignore the _wisps of her wave._

 _…_

I clenched a fist, and every knuckle cracked.

She took her place on Xerosic's right.

The agents of Team Flare were watching me. Trusting me to win their battle for them.

 _My terms, not yours. This isn't about you._

"Fight me, Clemont."

He and his pokemon watched, shell-shocked. I nodded approvingly.

 _They've gotten much, much stronger if they're all still in such good condition after fighting all this time._

Yeah. This wasn't like with Alain, fighting under the directive to kill or maim.

This was a fight to push Clemont out of the gym, and into safety. He'd leave Kalos with Serena and Bonnie, and they'd be safe from everything under the protection of all the regions of the world.

This was for a good cause.

 _I was allowed to enjoy this fight._

Clemont furrowed his brow.

His Aipom Arm and the Heliolisk Dish retracted into his backpack. He splayed his arms out, and offered his open palms to me.

"Ash, we don't need to do this," he said. "Please. Let me help you. Whatever they did to you, you're a lot stronger than it. I've known you for a long time now. You've always risen to the challenge. You've always overcome."

 _-Ba-dum._

I trembled.

My entire body quaked.

My brain rattled in my skull.

"You might be right, Clemont." I removed my cap and held it by the brim, tucked between thumb and forefinger.

I ran a hand through my hair.

"What does it mean to overcome?" I let out a gust of air. "I've had my successes, and I've had my failures. Like everyone ever, I've been on both sides of the fence. But in the end, I don't think my success outweighs my failure."

Clemont frowned. "You're the league runner-up. What are you talking about?"

"Every battle is a precious thing. When it's done right, it's a moment of perfect connection between trainer and pokemon." I looked up at the ceiling. "But some things are more precious than others. And my greatest failures have never been in an arena, I think.

"I used to think that. I agonized over my loss in Indigo, moped so hard about it my friends had to knock it into my skull how self-indulgent and dismissive of my opponent I was being. Did a bit better in the Orange Islands. Backslid in Johto. Stagnated in Hoenn, but the Battle Frontier came after: probably the sweetest victory I can remember, but it was a long time ago. Did a bit better in Sinnoh at Top 4: and I'll never forget those battles. Then another backslide in the Vertress Conference at Top 8, but, well, I'll be the first to admit I wasn't exactly at my sharpest in Unova. Kalos...Alain deserved it. It hurt, but I got over it quick enough."

Clemont raised an eyebrow. "I still don't understand. That all sounds… frankly, that's impressive."

"Y'know, I used to take some comfort in that," I said. _"I've made it far and wide._ Usually came up short in the end, but, well, not like it's the end of the world. Not permanently dead, no continents blown up or universes destroyed because I washed out of a league last time I checked.

"In the Lily of the Valley Conference, I lost to a man using a Darkrai. Swept all the competition with it. I was shocked to see someone had brought that kind of firepower just for a bit of sport. It almost felt," I swallowed and clenched my eyes shut. "When I finally beat his Darkai, he pulled out a Latios.

"It reminded me of Altomare... I failed to protect Latias' smile when I let her brother die, then in the most grueling fight of my life up to that point, here's his ghost just to twist the screws in deeper- _win or lose, the real challenge is something you'll never get another shot at._

I growled and clutched at my chest.

"Back in Unova I was knocked out of the running by someone so stupid their brain didn't work properly unless they smacked themselves in the head. He thought the Unova League was in Johto. As soon as I took the advantage, his Riolu evolved into a Lucario mid-match, and it was like a slap in the face: during my Frontier challenge, in Rota, I'd known a Lucario, and he died because I just didn't have enough power. He died because I let myself be pushed away, and like a coward, I couldn't muster the strength to stand back up again and share in his fate."

Clemont's eyes softened. "Ash, you've never told us about any of this. All those late night campfires, long walks on the road...you know, I would have liked to hear those stories, even if just to pass the time! _Serena,_ definitely. She always tried to talk to you, even if you never had much to say. And don't get me started on Bonnie! She already adores you so much, you wouldn't believe how jealous I am. Always Ash this, Ash that, and I'd be steaming mad if I didn't agree with her! So, let's drop this. Come over here. We'll beat Team Flare together, and-"

"Shut up, Clemont!" I roared. "You've only ever seen me at my best. You weren't there to see me fail over and over _and over again!_ You, Serena, Bonnie. You don't know a thing about me. I was the only one she came to, she was counting on me, but I failed Latias, and I failed to protect someone who'd just gotten their second chance at life after centuries locked in a prison. Latios and Lucario died because _I wasn't good enough_ so don't you dare tell me that _'I always overcome!'"_

"We can't possibly mean so little to you," Clemont whispered. "I've never seen you like this before. If you needed to talk, we were always there. Didn't you trust us?

"All those times you've saved us, that we've saved you, those countless hours spent on the road, laughing, sharing meals...all that meant nothing to you?" Clemont's eyes narrowed. "Are you saying our gym battle meant nothing to you? That I mean nothing to you? I put my whole heart and soul into that battle, Ash. I wanted it to last forever, if it could. You're telling me it didn't count?"

"That's not what I meant at all." I frowned. "I just told you, you all had nothing to do with any of it."

"It's normally the job of the hot-blooded hero type to snap their friends out of a funk," Clemont said. The Aipom Arm extended from his backpack with a mechanical whirr. "You taught me that, by example."

"What are you saying?"

"You're saying all kinds of nonsense. Thoughts that I know the real Ash would never think, not in a million years." The Heliolisk Dish snapped out of its compartment and settled over his shoulder. "I'm not the hero. Never was, never could be. No magnetism and inspirational speeches from me, no sir. But in your absence, and for your sake, I'm willing to take a crack at it."

The Heliolisk Dish flashed with light, frills moving in a circular wave. The Aipom Arm's three-fingered hand pushed Clemont's glasses further up his nose. The lenses reflected the emergency lights, becoming red and opaque.

Despite not being able to see his eyes, I could read the determination in his stance.

The aura I'd compared to a block of wood became a bonfire.

My heart beat wildly.

"I'm going to bring the real Ash back."

I steadied the trembling in my arms. He probably wouldn't even be able to tell in this low light, but best not to give him a reason to hesitate.

I put my hat back on.

Let's go.

"We'll make the first move then!" I shouted. "Greninja, Aerial Ace!"

Greninja glowed white, the Flying Type energy coalescing into cross-shaped blades wrapped around his chest. He disappeared, flashing into the midst of Clemont's pokemon.

He stunned Luxray with an elbow to the jaw, nailed Chespin in the gut with a scything backfist, and swung Bunnelby by its ears into the ground, kicking up a ring of dust.

"Now scatter them, Cut!"

Clemont howled, "Luxray, Thunder Fang!"

Greninja drew a tanto of light from the space around his waist, and slashed, but Luxray caught the blade between teeth crackling with electricity.

"Now, Chespin…" Clemont shuddered. He set his jaw and spread his arms wide. "Pin Missile!"

Energy built in the quills on Chespin's head, and he fired a wide fan of bullets at Greninja's back. With his free hand, Greninja manifested a katana of light and deflected the Pin Missiles with precision strikes, subtle movements of his wrist.

"Bunnelby! Mud Shot!"

"Go high and Cut."

Greninja unmanifested the tanto, and Luxray's teeth gnashed together with a clack that reverberated throughout the gym, sharp enough to be heard over the whine of the machine Clembot was attending to. With a flip, Greninja leapt over the Mud Shot, and as he landed he brought the katana down between Luxray's eyes, driving it chinfist into the ground. There was a sickening crack as Luxray's muzzle was driven inches deep into the reinforced floor of the battlefield.

 _Was that the floor? His fangs? The hinges of his jaw?_

Electricity discharged and was grounded the second after.

Luxray laid limp with clouded eyes.

Chespin, in tears and panicking, was recalled in a beam of red light.

Bunnelby had disappeared. I waited for him to come up with a Dig, but he didn't surface. No ingress hole for the attack either. Had he run away?

 _This is barely even a fight._

Greninja disengaged and returned to my side. He crossed his arms and pinned Clemont down with an imperious stare.

"Why are you holding back?" I said. Clemont stiffened. "Are you taking me seriously, Clemont?

 _Right there, on the top of the tower, when Greninja and I were at the precipice, if something had been able to keep us from falling off the edge-_

 _-But no. I never had the best track record with resisting influence like this to begin with._

 _I'm weak._

 _But if I keep fighting, keep fighting, find stronger opponents, Elite Four, Champions, Gods, I'll become much, much stronger. Greninja and I both._

 _Where was that conviction from before, Clemont?_

 _If just you're just going to stand there and mock me with a performance like this, I'll bury you like I've done with the rest of my weak past._

 _They all leave me eventually._

 _This time, I'll be the one to cut and run._

"I've been thinking…" Clemont muttered. "Ever since I lost to you, I've been thinking of how I could make up the difference between us. Your spontaneity was simply too overwhelming, but now, it's different. This combat prediction engine's head and shoulders over the one installed in Clembot!" The lenses of his glasses flashed, text sprawling across the surface. "The future is now, thanks to science!"

"Combat...prediction engine?" I snarled. "What, like a chess computer? Is that what I'm fighting right now?"

"Science is my power, Ash! This program was born of the fruits of my labor. It is as much a part of me, as your natural talents of improvisation are to you."

"That's a whole lotta words for someone who can't compete without having their hand held." I gnashed my teeth and made a crossing motion with my arms, synchronized with Greninja. "Just the excuses of a lousy cheat who needs to have a toy fight his battles for him!" My hands spread into wide claws, as though I were gripping an oversized dial. I turned my wrists sharply. "Greninja, Water Shuriken! Stop it halfway!"

Greninja initiated the creation of twin water shuriken, but aborted the process prematurely. Twin orbs of spiraling water were clenched in each of Greninja's hands. A move Clemont would have never recorded us doing in this state. A throwback to Greninja's existence as Froakie and Frogadier.

Clemont frowned.

Complicated white runes etched themselves into his lenses, shifting and replacing themselves whole blocks at a time. Might as well have been scribbles to me, but evidently Clemont got something out of them; he thrust both hands out, then tucked them in so his fists were clenched against his hips.

"Wild Charge!"

Luxray erupted in an aura of electricity so dense his form became an indistinct, sketchy mess. He propelled himself forward with a deafening boom, leaving behind crisp paw print indentations in the floor.

Twin orbs met the charging Luxray. Greninja's stance was strong. He should have been easily able to deflect Luxray's charge with one water orb, and then burst the other by its ear to perforate the drum and decide the match-

-I felt a jolt surge through my arms and into my chest, and Greninja grunted as Wild Charge's shroud completed a circuit with his body via the shaped water.

The twin orbs dispelled. Greninja's elbows locked, and he twisted painfully at the waist. Luxray roared, and drove the full weight of his lightning-clad body into Greninja's open side.

My partner gasped as his paralyzed body was subjected to exponentially more voltage, and enough concussive force to make a Primeape jealous.

He soared over thirty meters into the far wall, and disappeared into a Greninja-shaped hole.

 _Critical hit. It's super effective._

I groaned. My side ached. My spine ached. My _everything_ ached. I'd be feeling that in the morning, if morning ever came.

Clemont adjusted his glasses with his Aipom Arm. "I noticed it in the finals- when you fenced with Mega Charizard and its Thunder Punch wasn't conducted through the Water Shuriken." He smirked. "In our practice battles, Electric attacks easily affected your Water Shuriken in your base state, and the shroud of your nascent Bond Phenomenon transformation. Greninja only produces pure water in perfected synchronization!"

I raised an eyebrow. "Huh?"

"Well, water typically only acts as a channel for an electric current when contaminants-"

I laughed. "Alright, alright, I get it. We get shocked through stuff unless we're at full power. Jeez, Clemont. You know all that babble flies over my head. And as much as I normally like to see you ramble and get all enthusiastic-"

I raised an arm.

"-I'll just cut you off now and say _thanks for the lesson."_

The wall exploded, and Ash-Greninja emerged from the dust, encased in a cocoon of water.

Clemont took a step back. "I've calibrated the engine to keep up with your maximum speed. Luxray is more than fast enough to react, and I'm no slouch myself at interpreting the rapid data streams. There's nothing you have I cannot counter."

"Counter, huh?"

We moved. The water shroud compressed itself into an orb on our back, then began to spiral out to form the four blades of the Giant Water Shuriken.

We stopped the process early. Titanic butterfly wings of water flapped with our advance, visibly displacing air, trailing warped pockets of distortion in their wake.

Clemont shouted, "Electric Terrain, and Swift!"

Luxray howled, and slammed his forepaws against the ground. Great pillars of thunder erected up and into the ceiling, cast-off charge propagating throughout all the surfaces of the gym.

Luxray whipped its head about, releasing an array of speed star projectiles that passed through the electric pillars and skimmed the floor, gathering a potent charge.

 _No need to worry._ "Counter Shield!"

The wings broke apart into countless ribbons and thrashed about with whiplike cracks.

Spin. Spin. The raging whips followed the momentum set by our spinning forward motion, and became triple-tiered buzzsaws orbiting us as an ablative shield.

The stars shattered against the manifold blades. We tilted sideways, and the razor edges bit into the floor and drove us forward as an inexorable wheel of purest water.

 _Waterwheel Counter Shield._

The spinning wheels kept us off the electrified ground, skimming it to avoid incurring Paralysis.

"An advancing guard?" Clemont's glasses flashed. "Derail it!"

A drill rocketed out of the ground, and slammed into the flat of the blade driving us forward.

We veered sharply, missing Luxray by a mile.

Bunnelby gingerly hopped on the electric floor, making a come-at-me gesture with its prehensile ears before drilling back underground.

Bunnelby held his breath for that long?

Ridiculous. It's been tracking Greninja underground this entire time?

What kind of training do you have to do to get Dig that fast and accurate?

What a monstrous Dig. What incredible timing.

Really. Even if it gave him some forewarning of my strategy, the counterplan still needed to be refined by him, then executed by him and his pokemon.

Science was amazing, if it could let a little guy like Bunnelby get some in edgewise on a Mega Evolution or Bond Phenomenon user.

More. I needed to see more of that skill, that talent. Innate or extended further by his genius. Everything Clemont had to offer, I wanted to take. All the potential of this wonderful power I'd never know myself.

 _I want to see all of you._

Greninja's eyes shone with unnatural light.

"No more holding back!" I mimed dragging the tip of a sword against the floor. "Steer with Cut!"

A blade manifested in our hand, twice as long as usual, more a naginata than a tanto. With a grunt, we shunted it into the floor at an angle and twisted, putting the course of our Waterwheel back on target.

We roared. The innermost blade of the waterwheel was consumed by our skin. Black frills erupted from the sides of the crest upon our head in haphazard rows. The surface of the crest swelled and burned so hot it bordered on painful. My stomach liquefied, rearranging itself, and most of the surface area of my weak underbelly was replaced by reinforced skin.

Turning over, I thrust my naginata of light into the floor. I used it to vault high, abandoning it, and in the next second the tips of my long ears brushed the high ceiling of the gym.

The remaining waterwheels compressed themselves into rings on my wrist, then expanded into twin Giant Water Shuriken, which boiled until steam ran off the edges in thin streams and curlicues. They rotated, hissing and whirring until their whine became a klaxon.

I launched them at Luxray with a cross-armed throw-

 _-Everything was consumed by red water._

The League-sanctioned battlefield ceased to exist, shattering into bits of iron and reinforced concrete carried by the spray and driven deep into the walls. Electricity discharged in fits and starts, accompanied by high spikes of lightning where the underlying power lines were compromised by sharp debris and pressurized boiling water.

The uncontrolled electricity from the broken wiring and the discharged Electric Terrain sparked a ring of fire that creeped across the ruins.

 _The battlefield burned._

Bunnelby's battered body was recalled by red light before it could plunge into the flames.

Luxray remained untouched, guarded by a spinning shield of stars.

 _He's adapted Counter Shield to a different move after only seeing it once?_

I landed.

"Such a novel ability being used for this brand of wanton destruction," Xerosic sniffed. "Director Lysandre's chosen quite the barbarian."

Malamar chuckled and cut off its psychokinesis, allowing a rain of suspended shrapnel to clatter onto the ground at their feet. Crobat hissed and flitted about in an erratic pattern.

Essentia's head tilted the slightest fraction.

Clemont gasped. The Aipom Arm had done a passable job of shielding him from harm, but his blue jumpsuit was shredded apart in places, revealing minor cuts and burns. The white glove covering the Aipom Arm's hand was tattered, revealing the mechanical workings beneath.

My frills and other mutations dissipated in a burst of white steam.

I was Ash watching Greninja's back as he took a knee, panting heavily.

 _No good, huh? The scalding shuriken variant we used in the finals uses up too much of our power all at once, and it's oddly fragile- I could understand Blast Burn weakening it, but not being able to pierce a screen of Swift? Then the cast-off energy doing that much damage to everything but the target?_

 _We're doing something wrong. That move is incomplete._

But this was good.

The stars faded, and Luxray stood proud on four legs.

Greninja gasped, and worked himself back to his feet.

Good. All distractions out of the way, no special forms.

An even match.

"You've gotten a lot stronger, Clemont," I said.

Clemont looked around the battlefield, then said in a cracked voice, "Ash… _my gym,_ you've..."

Greninja's knees buckled, but he caught himself instantly, fearful of showing weakness. I knew the feeling. His pride was hurt.

 _This entire time, you've been looking down on them, huh buddy? After we achieved our new form...I was too. But we should have learned a long, long time ago that someone weaker on paper can easily turn the tides under the right conditions. After all, we're usually the underdog, right, Greninja?_

Greninja grunted. _I do not intend to lose here._

 _Neither do I. The only way Clemont gets out of here unscathed is if we take him down so Xerosic and Essentia have no reason to touch him. If we lose here, he'll be at the mercy of the rest of Team Flare. We're protecting a friend, so there's no way we can lose._

"Show us your and Luxray's full power," I flicked my wrist, and Greninja manifested a crude spike of light. "Or we'll blow you away with our next attack."

We danced.

The spike meant to pierce the braincase was parried by gleaming fangs.

A glowing white knee was turned aside by the flat of a yellow star, and the tail attached to it wound around the outstretched thigh.

Contact. The spike bruised the base of the tail, releasing the leg, and the frog and the lion began again.

Four clones manifested, brandishing identical daggers.

A casual swing of the tail released a flurry of stars that dispelled the illusions.

Forepaws were raised and crackled with thunder, primed to erase the burning battlefield and replace it with a field of lightning.

Shards of water too small and misshapen to be called 'shuriken' impacted the paws and discharged the lightning.

Sharp claws opened three gashes in the frog's soft underbelly.

A glowing fist was sent flying in response, burying itself in the lion's chest. It roared and was sent flying to the opposite side of the battlefield, the star at the end of its tail skimming the bordering fire.

Clemont threw his hand out and screamed, and Luxray cloaked himself in light and leaped forward with abandon.

I clutched an invisible shiv in my hand and slashed, and Greninja answered in turn.

Spin. Spin, spin, spinning. The fundamentals of spin-dodge, of the _counter shield,_ a technique developed in time with the one I'd been most synchronized with in the world before Greninja. We used it to great effect, and Greninja pivoted on his heel and allowed Luxray to charge past.

Luxray's back was open to us. Greninja plunged the spike into Luxray's spine.

 _-The sound of breaking glass._

The blade broke into motes of light.

Greninja disengaged, but his weakened legs turned an elegant flip into a disgraceful tumble, rolling sideways shoulder-over-shoulder, his head thumping painfully against the ground with each cycle. It was pure luck that he didn't roll right into a fire.

The cloak of lightning didn't abate.

With a snap of Clemont's fingers, Luxray pivoted on its heels and continued its pursuit.

"Double Team!"

Shadow clones of Greninja were projected all across the battlefield. The ones which manifested in flame were reduced to sketch and their delicate figures returned to nothingness.

The fire worked in our favor.

Luxray's superb senses of smell and vision were sabotaged by the smoke, and Greninja hid himself within the mass of clones.

But his charge was unrelenting. In mere seconds, the battlefield had been cleared of clones, and Greninja found himself in the lion's warpath.

Spouts of water manifested in his hands.

Greninja winced.

They lost any imitation of form and dribbled down his fingers.

 _Wrong wrong wrong._

Whatever well of power we drew the material for our water shuriken from was nearly depleted.

I grit my teeth. I flicked my hands up, acting as though I were clutching a sewing needle between the second knuckle of each finger. "Cut- _Iaigiri Senbon!"_

He interpreted my command flawlessly, manifesting two fistfuls of needles.

The first volley of energy needles impacted harmlessly against the Wild Charge cloak and broke.

The second valley was aimed at his feet, and succeeded in shattering the ground and breaking Luxray's footing. The lightning fizzled out. Out of control, the lion tumbled painfully head-over-tail, coming to a skidding stop at Greninja's feet.

I scythed out a kick. "Aerial Ace!"

The text on Clemont's glasses went wild, and he shouted, "Thunder Fang!"

Greninja pivoted out of the way of the closing maw with the leg he still had planted on the ground, and Luxray's fangs clicked together. Lightning streamed harmlessly from the sides of his mouth.

The Flying Type energy in Greninja's raised foot became a white blaze, and he stomped his heel down into the back of Luxray's neck.

The lion went limp for the last time.

Unreserved laughter rang throughout the burning battlefield.

"Luxray is unable to battle! Therefore, the winner is Team Flare Admin Ash Ketchum!"

Lysandre stepped out of the dark with a manic grin.

He walked through the flames, clapping all the while.

Xerosic rubbed his chin. "Crude...but there is potential. Wouldn't you say, my dear?"

Essentia nodded.

Clemont dropped to his knees. Even his mechanical arms drooped, seemingly out of whatever power drove his backpack. The text running down his lenses went wild, then fizzled out of existence.

 _I could see his eyes._

Before I could get more than a fleeting glimpse of them, I turned to Lysandre.

I grinned, still riding the high of battle.

"It's done."


	6. Chapter 6

A moment of necessary violence before peace.

Essentia tore Clembot limb from limb, and the light left his eyes.

The aftermath was quiet.

The crackle and pop of fire, fading by the second as Volcarona ate the flames and Malamar smothered the lingering embers with its psychokinesis.

The sleepy drone of Flare's machine.

Essentia unhooked Clemont's backpack, frisked him for weapons or gadgets, then sent a small nod my way.

I kneeled in front of him.

He kept his eyes on the floor.

"Maybe," he began. He swallowed, working through a dry mouth, "maybe I never knew the real Ash at all."

I nodded. "I don't think I did either."

"I...I hate you, Ash," Clemont whispered. "Not for what you've done here. My gym, my pride, _Clembot_...they can be rebuilt. Just because...god, Ash. If Bonnie ever learns- no, she'll make it out of this alive, I know she will- _when_ Bonnie learns about all this, she'll be heartbroken. I can't forgive you for that."

"Yeah," I said. "Sorry. I don't think Serena will either. She wants to be Kalos Queen- there won't be Showcases in Kalos for some time to come. But she can still make others smile. I'm not taking away her dream. She can enter the Contest circuit, or be like Duplica and go independent. Isn't that for the best? After this, you'll all have a fresh start."

"A fresh start in what? Team Flare's world?"

"Listen, if-"

 _"_ _Stop talking, Ash."_

I closed my mouth.

"I adore a beautiful production," Lysandre called from the sidelines, "and most of all, the exquisite severance of an inadequate past. But we've wasted enough time here as it is."

He flicked out a hand.

Floating orbs emerged from the dark and shot towards Clemont.

They encased his hands and feet, then tightened with a pneumatic hiss.

Red light flared before they dimmed to a glossy black.

 _What's wrong with good old fashioned handcuffs? Even their shackles have to be all fancy. I bet Lysandre designed them himself. He looks the type to spend nights drafting up ways to make sure his POWs are as pleasant to look at as possible._

Greninja sent me a heavy look. _...Macabre._

Xerosic barked out a sharp command, and Malamar giggled and placed Clemont under Hypnosis. His head drooped quickly- the technique worked best if the target was suffering from great fatigue.

I continued to avoid his eyes as the lids gradually fell shut.

 _Sorry, Clemont. This was for the best. Rest now, and you'll come out on the other side in a better place. Everyone will._ I raised an eyebrow at Greninja. _How are you holding up?_

Greninja winced and gestured at his chest wounds. _Fine, naturally. But we came far too close to defeat for comfort. Luxray was, as expected, a worthy opponent._

I resisted the urge to topple over.

Even the embarrassment of fainting like a lush felt preferable to staying in the world for another second.

 _After everything is done, I think I'd like to sleep forever._

A rough noise, like soup cans rattling down an alley.

Iron soles treaded shattered concrete.

Essentia stood in front of me, holding a beige spray bottle filled with a green liquid.

 _Full Restore._

She moved uncomfortably close to me, the glass of her visor nearly kissing my cheek. I resisted the urge to step back- Lysandre had called me a Team Flare _Admin,_ so I couldn't be showing weakness in front of someone lower on the hierarchy than me, intimidation play or not.

Even still, the all-concealing, space-age getup made me shudder.

"Master Xerosic has sent me to provide relief." Essentia gestured at Greninja, then tilted her head in a questioning way at me, the action causing the glass to brush my cheekbone. The contact nearly me made me lash out. "May I have your permission to treat your partner, Ash Ketchum?"

I glanced over at Lysandre. He had that now-familiar fatherly smile plastered on his face.

 _Thanks for the illusion of choice._

I took the bottle from her. Twisting the nozzle, I sprayed the medicine on Greninja's wounds. They hissed, then sealed with unnatural speed, flesh knitting then spiraling shut.

Not even a scar left behind.

I felt a sympathetic reaction through our bond- his strength was mine, and I felt the aches and pains of the past few hours melt away into a pleasant buzz.

Synchronized, we raised our fists and experimentally clenched them.

Perfect reaction.

The Mega Evolution energy acting in my body almost felt as though it luxuriated in the new vitality.

Essentia nodded once, then began to walk away.

I frowned when I realized she wasn't walking away all that _far_ away- she stopped at a little less than arm's length, then stood still like a statue.

I sent a questioning look to Lysandre.

"You and Essentia will act as a two-man cell for the remainder of the invasion." Lysandre smiled. "A force strong enough to take on any threat, human or pokemon."

"What about you?"

"I've business elsewhere." He snapped his fingers. "Xerosic."

"Yes, Director."

The man walked up in front of me. He reached into his pocket, and pulled out a red Holocaster.

"Take care of this." Xerosic pressed it into my palm. I was thankful he did it with the gloved hand. "My warning is twofold: commercial models have no line to us, so you lose this, you're on your own. And of _infinitely_ more importance, Zygarde will not target you so long as you have this on your person. No burning desire to be pulped by a root the size of a skyscraper? Then _be careful."_

"Right."

I turned the device over in my hands. Couldn't be that different from a pokedex.

 _So this phone is enough to no-sell a legendary pokemon?_

 _A god is powerless against a fragile thing like this?_

"What Master Xerosic neglected to explain is that I have similar functionalities integrated into my Expansion Suit," Essentia droned. "Do not fear. Even in the worst case scenario, Ash Ketchum, I will protect you."

"...Thank you?"

"Essentia!" Xerosic cried. "Now he _knows_ he has a safety net. He won't take any of this seriously if you _coddle_ him."

Essentia looked down at her feet. "My sincerest apologies, Master."

"Xerosic!" Lysandre boomed. "Enough of this foolishness. Stop harassing the children."

"Yes, Director Lysandre! My sincerest apologies!"

The man shuffled back to Lysandre's side.

 _Essentia._ The girl was a mystery to me.

Her anemic aura escaped the void of her person in wisps so faint I was nearly convinced I was imagining them. My mind trying to make sense of something inherently wrong-

 _-He strapped her into the machine-_

-but no, that was wrong.

I had her resonant frequency.

Somewhere in there was an existence similar to my own.

But right then, I couldn't help but feel I'd just been partnered with a walking, talking corpse.


	7. Chapter 7

We strode across wet pavement.

The atmosphere was still thick with electric discharge, and the smell of burnt ozone was nearly overwhelming to my senses— it brought to mind charred apricorns. Here and there, storm clouds lingered in the sky, occasionally lighting up and rumbling, heralding bolts that never came.

 _The storm's given all it has to give. This is the aftermath._

 _Everything that comes after is the wake._

 _She_ wasn't bothered though. Essentia walked beside me with strange, mechanical efficiency. Like a doll being puppeted, or a wind-up doll going through the motions. Despite the cold evening air brushing her bare shoulders, there wasn't a hint of goosebumps on her skin.

Every sense dulled. Every automatic response to the world smothered in the cradle.

The blades of a helicopter chopped the air, loud enough to drown out the roars and destruction of the twin Zygarde laying waste to the city. As we got close, I realized with a start that I could see each individual blade in rotation.

The hatch opened for us.

Three women and three men in red suits were already sitting on the benches on either side of the compartment. Before they could lower the ramp, Essentia leaped into the cargo bay with casual ease, then kneeled at the lip and stretched out her arm, offering her hand to me.

I took it with only a moment's hesitation. She pulled me up quickly, as though I were weightless, and we settled together side-by side on the left bench, closest to the exit.

If she was going to be my companion for this new journey, then I needed to trust her just like I did everyone who came before.

The hatch closed. We took off.

It took a moment before I noticed how the Team Flare Grunts shifted uneasily in their seats.

I glanced down. Red tongues of Mega Evolution energy flickered from my skin.

 _I look like a dumpster fire._

Essentia was scary in a far different way, a small, soft-spoken girl who would probably be endearing if she weren't wrapped in a mechanical nightmare.

Together, we might have registered as a more immediate danger than the apocalypse outside.

 _How many of you didn't see this coming?_

 _How many of you were gang-pressed into this nonsense, how many of you were jumped in, how many of you actually share these ridiculous death cult ideals?_

The woman to the left of me was visibly trembling. It was hard to see her eyes through the orange lenses of her sunglasses, but I could see the moisture dripping down her cheeks. The rigid set of her jaw as the joints pressed out against the skin.

I placed a hand on her shoulder and she jumped in her seat.

"Hey, calm down." My voice was alien to me, too sly, almost sickly. "There's no need to wo—"

 _Pain._

Like a Night Slash through the temple.

Our aura flared.

— _They'd been in lab coats, last time she'd seen them, but now they arrived garbed in bizarre outfits right off a runway or the pages of a snob's fashion magazine. The lion-man, the leader, was dressed head-to-toe in black leather festooned with white fur trim, likely sourced from a prize Flaaffy, and he looked nothing less than the devil incarnate._

 _"It's the fleece of a Mega Ampharos, actually," he purred when she summoned up the nerve to ask._

 _She'd always been a little more perceptive than her childhood friend, so she'd warned him of the man and his almost hilariously blatant evil. He'd laughed her off. Said that this was their way out of the slums and into a better life. A job offer, that was all this was. If the so-called Team Flare- and despite their catchy name she knew that they were little more than a gang of rich thugs- were willing to pay so handsomely for just a little grunt labor, well, that was an amazing opportunity._

 _"Lysandre's a great man," her childhood friend said without a hint of irony. "He makes those crazy phones, the ones where the people pop outta 'em. Super cool."_

 _A road to a better life. A real one, with pleasures beyond subsistence._

 _Neither of them had ever received an education beyond the stories their mothers had read to them before bed. They'd lived in the bombed out ruins of this godforsaken city since before she was old enough to even start forming memories._

 _When her childhood friend took the lion-man's hand, she knew her fate was sealed._

 _He was an idiot, making a deal with the devil, but she'd happily follow him anywhere he went to keep him safe. He was her priority. There'd never been anything more important in her life than him, and there never would be. His dreams were hers, after all. For her, he was the one and only_ —

She slapped my hand away, then slid further away from me on the bench, breathing heavily, sweat pouring down her face. The male grunt beside her said in a harsh whisper, "Don't mess with Xerosic's boogeymen. They wanna schmooze, just humor 'em. Never met the lightbulb there, but I've seen the helmet girl pick a grown man up with one hand and toss 'im through a brick wall."

I realized I was glaring.

I raised a hand to my face and tried to smooth the muscles out with my fingers.

It did very little. The aura around me continued burning, tongues of flame like spears detaching from the greater whole, swirling in the air like they'd found a target and were just waiting for the command to fire.

I turned away and settled for directing my anger at the cargo door.

I'd forgotten Essentia was sitting to my right, and flinched as my nose brushed her visor.

"Are you unwell?" she whispered. "I have medication on hand that would soothe your nerves, should you desire it."

"Um, that really doesn't sound like a good idea."

"As you wish."

The uneasy silence continued. Nervous energy filled the air. From the grunts, from me as well. Essentia's quiet presence would have been soothing if I didn't know _why_ she was like that. It was like sitting with a ghost. I felt like tearing my hair out. I'd half a mind to just kick open the cargo ramp and drop into the streets. Hoof it like usual.

 _The drop's only what, a couple hundred meters? We've survived worse._

I heard Greninja snort within his poke ball. _Calm yourself. We'll be back in the fray soon enough, provided you don't decide to evolve into a pancake._

 _'_ _Soon enough' isn't 'right now,' and that's just terrible._

I blinked. "Essentia."

"Yes?"

"Tell me the thing we're supposed to do again." I chuckled and scratched at my cheek. "Um, I was only paying about half attention while that bald guy in the white suit was blabbering at us. Please?"

"Very well." Essentia tilted her head. She was silent for a moment, then a holographic map of Lumiose City was projected from a marble set into her wrist. Here and there, hotspots were highlighted in red and tagged with fine print. Colored a deeper red, two Zs roamed slowly throughout the inner city, forsaking the streets entirely and running roughshod over landmarks and buildings. "Reports indicate that a minority of the Kalos Gym Leaders are closing in on Lumiose City from all directions- the majority have elected to stay within their territory and protect their own people. Of immediate worry is Regional Champion Diantha. Both a flag for the defenders to rally around, and an inexorable trump card in combat. Their greatest strength- but also their greatest weakness."

Essentia nodded. A rounded capital E flashed across her visor.

"Ash Ketchum, you and I will capture Champion Diantha."


	8. Chapter 8

It was one of the first thoughts to occur to me after I'd succumbed.

 _Champion Diantha._

I'd first been introduced to her by her overwhelming strength.

She was slated to have an exhibition match against a trainer named Magnus, a tough-looking guy, all muscle and greying hair, with probably decades of experience in battle. His Absol looked to be in peak physical condition, and it had a wildness in its eyes I'd come to associate with exceptionally powerful pokemon.

The first half of the battle was decided with nothing more in the way of commands from Diantha than winks and micromovements of her eyes in order to convey the manner and direction of Gardevoir's evasion.

I was convinced that they were using Teleport in order to flit across the battlefield with such speed, faster than the eye could see.

But as the battle continued, and my eyes adjusted to their movements, I realized that it was just pure speed— I'd confused raw physical movement with a technique that spat on the fabric of spacetime because of the practical parity, and that was frightening.

Her silent command style had its limitations: eventually she was forced to call for Shadow Ball and Moonblast. A small ball of Ghost Type energy brought Absol to the breaking point, then a spiraling sphere of Fairy Type energy ripped from an artificial full moon cut through the Absol's desperate last attack like a hot knife through butter.

She'd mopped the floor with him in under a minute.

It was breathtaking.

I fell a little bit in love then— Gardevoir was an ace unlike any I'd seen before, and it hadn't even had to use the Mega Stone hanging from its neck.

In my own battle with Diantha, Pikachu and I had sought to dazzle her with our power, show her the measure of a partnership that'd grown through endless challenge.

She handled us with even more ease than she had Magnus.

But in the rematch, fighting alongside Greninja—

— _Thump._

I clutched at my chest.

I pounded it a few times.

It was beyond phantom pain.

My heart had actually stopped for a moment, my vision overtaken by splatters of ink, manic background noise that ate the world. A fire alarm blared in my ear, reaching a crescendo as I called for the final Cut to decide the match.

I gasped for air.

 _Close. So close._

Victory over a Champion would have soothed the pain of every loss, minor and major, but I'd sabotaged myself again.

A dull pain as my temple impacted the metal floor of the cargo bay.

 _Ah. How embarrassing._

In place of a panicked yell, I began to laugh like an idiot.

I couldn't stop laughing, even as the cargo bay filled with the concerned mutterings of the flare grunts.

My brain was in agony: every component of my body felt as though it were on fire.

 _Misfiring nerves._

 _Flaring imagistic impressions of draconic and canine figures dissolving into nothingness._

If I strained my ears, I could hear beyond the hysterical klaxon, the sound of the bones within me clattering against the steel floor to produce rhythmic vibrations.

The ink disappeared.

The noise resolved into gunmetal grey and red suits.

Essentia slid a needle out of my arm and I felt calmness blanket the crazed abnormalities.

My whole body was numb.

I was swimming in a pool of detached sensation.

"...Do you understand the plan, Ash Ketchum?" Essentia's synthesized voice droned in my ear.

I worked my way back up to the bench, and gasped. "Beat Diantha."

"Yes. I will act as a distraction— you will ambush her from behind and take her Key Stone. From there, with my Poke Ball Jack function, we will usurp control over Mega—"

 _"No."_ Something frightening tore through the numbness and my vision colored red. "I'll beat her. One on one, a fair fight. Greninja and I will take her down."

"That is utterly illogical," Essentia said. She tilted her head in that peculiar way. "With you alone, the chances of defeating her entire team are astronomically low. With both of us, and subversion of the typical ritual of a pokemon battle, the chance of victory approaches certainty."

"I don't want something certain," I snarled. "I want something _real."_

"Foolishness," Essentia said. "Master Xerosic and Director Lysandre ordered me to defer to your judgment in most matters, Administrator, but this is beyond the pale. You cannot convince me not to intervene against an opponent as overwhelming as the Champion of Kalos."

I clutched Greninja's pokeball. "I don't need to convince you."

"Certainly, your battle potential is greater than mine by far," Essentia said. "But you will find that it is futile to purposefully direct hostile intent at my person."

It was already decided.

 _If my own partner is going to get in the way of my dreams like this_ —

—My arm refused to move.

Drawing Greninja's pokeball was impossible. It was as though my hand were anchored by a hundred thousand pound lead weight.

Essentia nodded. "The countermeasures against Zygarde extend to you as well. So please, relax and save your energy."

"I hate you."

"That is a shame. I rather like you."

 _What?_

"Master Xerosic claimed you would be my very first friend, so I hope to change your opinion in time."

 _Maybe in another time and place. Maybe in a Mirror World, a circumstance where we met on the street as wandering trainers unshackled to genocidal madmen._

"After this, when everyone is safe," I said. "When everything's blown over, maybe—"

—A branch erupted from the bulkhead, just to the left of me. It was joined by others piercing the floor and roof. The flare grunts screamed, and the pilot barked out orders that went completely ignored.

There was a deafening crunch. It was likely more had slipped between the blades of the rotor, bringing them to a catastrophic full stop.

My stomach lurched as we hurtled towards the streets.

 _Zygarde?_

 _No. The branches aren't red._

 _A Frenzy Plant like this could only belong to one person._

I grinned.

I reached for Greninja's pokeball, and this time it slipped into my hand without any resistance.

The helicopter was torn apart by the Frenzy Plant's roots. Before the occupants could begin plummeting to their deaths, smaller tendrils branched off from the main roots and wound themselves around their waists.

Essentia's boots ignited, and she performed an air-dash towards the closest rooftop. I rolled my eyes. Honestly, I was expecting something more like Gligar Man's grappling hook, but of course Flare would go above and beyond.

It was then that I realized that I was still in freefall, and myriad tendrils were mere meters from restraining me.

"Greninja, Cut!"

Greninja appeared in a burst of red light, twin light kunai already clutched in his hands. He twisted, and turned into a blazing red top that severed the tendrils closing in.

He slipped an arm around my waist, and I raised a hand into the air.

A torrent of water enclosed us, then became two massive butterfly wings sprouting from Greninja's back.

 _Closer._ I could make out the distinctly rough texture of the pavement below. The wings flapped, but they weren't true wings— flight was beyond us. They only slowed the inevitable.

I made a cross with my fingers.

Dozens of Double Team shadow clones emerged from nothing, starting at ground level and building into a linked pyramid of copies.

 _One._ We impacted the first clone and it became a splash of water.

 _Two._ Five more clones beneath. They fared as well as the first.

 _Three._ Twenty clones. Five broke immediately, but fifteen bore our weight; we glanced at a nearby streetlight, and our tongue lashed out towards it. It wrapped around the steel pole, and we swung safely into the center of the road.

Butterfly wings flapped once, then became two waves washing over the buildings on either side of the street. The remaining base of the clone pyramid fizzled out into mist.

A little ways down the road, Sawyer and Mega Sceptile stood in battle stance in front of a small group of cowering civilians.

Trevor and Tierno stood on either side of him, behind that slender Mega Charizard and Raichu respectively.

Surprisingly enough, I could make out Shauna and her Ivysaur crouched in the rear, reassuring the civilians.

Sawyer's stance relaxed. "Ash…?"

"Hey, Sawyer." I waved at him. "Actually kinda surprised to see you here, you're a ways off from Prism Tower. Thought you and Mega Sceptile would have been making a push for it after seeing the broadcast- you guys are pretty strong, you'd stand a good chance of pushing back Flare, y'know?"

"Champion Diantha told us to do civilian relief work," Sawyer frowned. "I would have liked to play a role in the counterattack, but, um, she's the Champion and...hey, what were you doing in that helicopter? Did Flare capture you?"

"Yeah, they did. Thanks for getting me out of that copter. It was real stuffy in there."

Sawyer blushed. "No problem. This is great! With you and Greninja leading us, we can take Prism Tower, just like you said. Right, Sceptile?"

Sceptile growled, and twin Leaf Blade sprouted from his forearms.

"Hey," Sawyer began, "Sceptile, it's just Ash, you don't have to—"

"Sawyer, look closer," Tierno said. "There's something wrong with him."

Trevor rolled his eyes. "What tipped you off, the part where he's literally on fire, just like those giant snakes destroying the city?"

Tierno nodded. "Mostly the glowing red demon eyes, but now that you mention it, the fire's pretty weird too."

Shauna gasped.

I had to give her credit. She broke away from the civilians and fell into line with Sawyer, Ivysaur crouched and ready. Their stance was surprisingly aggressive. I wouldn't have expected that from someone who did exclusively Tripokalon; she certainly hadn't had that confidence in her during our Double Battle.

I glanced at Greninja.

He croaked. _They are worthy of respect._

 _Is that right? All of them together, you think they can put up a good fight?_

Greninja shrugged. _More than that. There is a very good chance we would lose. As confident as I am in our strength, cutting down two strong Mega Evolutions and four complete teams simultaneously is perhaps beyond us._

That was troubling. Couldn't lose. Couldn't fall before I confirmed Serena and Bonnie's safety, got them out of this mess. Couldn't trust Alain to skip the region with them, not when he had other priorities.

The moment he secured Mairin and Chespie, he'd be getting right out of dodge. Serena wouldn't leave without Bonnie, and Alain wouldn't care enough to convince her to leave. Couldn't trust him. Couldn't trust anyone.

I was the one and only chance this whole mess could go anything but rotten for the people I cared about.

Light glinted from the rooftops.

Essentia was crouched at the edge of a building, a pokeball clutched in one hand and a telescoping baton in the other.

Maybe I was wrong. It was a dangerous alliance, but one that could tip the scales for me.

I spread out my arms. "Well? We gonna talk all night, or did you want a battle?"

Sawyer bit his lip. "This is ridiculous. Ash, we outnumber you four to one. Just...give up quietly, and after everything blows over, we'll get you help. That's a promise."

"I promise too!" Shauna called. "Ash, think about how Serena would feel if she saw you acting like this! You know, when I first met you, all I could think was," she lowered her gaze, " _'wow, this boy is so cool!'_ Then I saw Serena, the girl from that amazing pokevision, how she looked at you, how you looked at her, and I just—"

 _Something broke._

The water shroud spiraled up around myself and Greninja as though shot from a geyser, reaching high enough to break the clouds. Cold droplets fell upon the street as false rain, each miniature impact ringing loud and clear in the silence.

The shroud, every falling droplet, every bit of moisture in the street, returned to us as though pulled by a magnet and compressed itself tight against our body, sinking into our skin.

The mutations came faster this time.

The Giant Water Shuriken formed upon our back.

In an instant, I felt our crest burn red.

I spoke with my voice and Greninja's. "You'd use her name to manipulate me?"

"That's," Shauna's voice trembled. "That's not what I was trying to do at all. I just mean, Serena—"

 _"Don't say her name."_

Greninja and I glanced at each other.

"Let's go, partner."


End file.
